Keeping Score at the Grocery Store

In the chaos of the supermarket a few days before Christmas, milk, eggnog, and a package of those Li’l Smokies sausages fell into our shopping cart. These items don’t usually find their way into our frig but the year-end holiday meals somehow demanded them. If the market wasn’t so frantic I would’ve also whipped out my phone to see if these purchases deserved my dollars. After all, just about everything we use in the kitchen (and bathroom) these days has a little numeric value lurking just below the surface.

Nacho Cheese Doritos are now a “5” in my world.  You might say pretty good! until I tell you that’s on a scale of 1-100.  But let’s say you choose Blue Diamond’s Almond Nut-Thin Crackers instead.  The number skyrockets to 84.  A roll of Wint-O-Green Life Savers earns a 28 while a box of Tic Tac Freshmints doubles the number.  Nature Valley Granola Bars? 51. Heinz Ketchup? 33.  And in the ultimate insult to products considered “food”, perfectly round Nabisco Oreos earn a perfectly round 0/100.

What’s with all the tallying, you ask?  The numbers are simply the output of a little smartphone app called Yuka, which joined my personal parade of subscriptions last May.  In the words of its young French founders (Julie, and brothers Francois and Benoît), Yuka “deciphers product labels and analyzes the health benefits of foods and cosmetics”.  Plain English: Scan the barcode of anything in the supermarket and Yuka tells you whether to buy it or not.

Candidly, it wasn’t the numbers that sold me on Yuka.  Rather it’s this: the app is completely ad-free because brands cannot pay Yuka to advertise their products.  In other words, the numerical ratings I’ve shared are generated objectively, using common perceptions of the health benefits of ingredients.  Yuka has rocked the small space known as my kitchen pantry.

Never is this overhaul more evident than with “cosmetics”, Yuka’s catch-all for everything you find in the bathroom.  In the last eight months I’ve swapped out my deodorant, mouthwash, shaving cream, shampoo, and face wash for items with better Yuka numbers.  Five products I used every day and purchased for years just went flying off my medicine cabinet shelves, replaced by other products that are healthier on and in me (including Aveeno’s facial cleanser, which earns a perfect 100).

Yuka (the name is a nod to Yucatán) is about more than scan-and-score.  You can also simply search on products, mining a database of five million entries.  Even if a product isn’t in the database you can enter the ingredients from the label and Yuka will give it a number.  And if that number is lousy (like it is for your Oreos or my L’il Smokies) Yuka will point you to a list of alternatives with better numbers.  Again, Yuka doesn’t recommend one product over another; it just presents the numbers for you to consider.

In a nod to the healthy habits of Europeans (who favor fresh foods), Yuka’s founders realized its app was most popular in America, where we are so fond of packaged products.  So they packed up their French offices and French families and moved to the middle of Manhattan – temporarily – to better connect with their target audience.  Eventually they’ll head back home but not before Yuka is sure to land on the smartphones of millions of Americans.

Here’s one more aspect of Yuka I appreciate: the founders take time to communicate with their users.  In the eight months I’ve subscribed, they’ve sent me twelve emails with interesting articles about healthy eating, healthy “cosmetics”, and the entertaining evolution of their little company (which includes a dog as an employee).  They also sent me a fun video of their first few days in New York City.  And just last week I received a year-end recap of my app use (93 products scanned with an average score of 46).  No advertisements and no product pushes.

The subscriber version of Yuka is $15/year (you can try a more limited version for free), which includes the convenient scan-for-a-score feature.  Furthermore, your subscription dollars are what keeps Yuka in business, instead of funding manufacturers who’d like nothing more than to push their products on you.  That’s just one of the reasons I now keep score at the grocery store.

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Author: Dave

Five hundred posts would suggest I have something to say… This blog was born from a desire to elevate the English language, highlighting eloquent words from days gone by. The stories I share are snippets of life itself, and each comes with a bonus: a dusted-off word I hope you’ll go on to use more often. Read “Deutschland-ish Improvements” to learn about my backyard European wish list. Try “Slush Fun” for the throwback years of the 7-Eleven convenience store. Or drink in "Iced Coffee" to discover the plight of the rural French cafe. On the lighter side, read "Late Night Racquet Sports" for my adventures with our latest moth invasion. As Walt Whitman said, “That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.” Here then, my verse. Welcome to Life In A Word.

20 thoughts on “Keeping Score at the Grocery Store”

    1. If the best-price app doesn’t exist then you should invent it. You’d make a fortune and then you wouldn’t have to worry about where the best prices are anymore. Speaking of making fortunes, I wish I’d invented Yuka… 🙂

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  3. That’s a great app Dave. Like you, eggnog was in my holiday cart and it was so good I don’t have any left for New Year’s Eve. Walker’s Shortbread found its way in there as well. I had bought a small package of white fudge-covered Oreos for a holiday treat, but I ate them the day of the flooding debacle. I needed something that day and to tell you the truth they were overly sweet, so I see why Oreos get a rating of 0/100. This is the second year I’ve picked up a package of Li’l Smokies, but since I have to eat the whole package myself I put them back – too tempting to bundle up half of them and put them in the freezer right away. 🙂 Restraint is a good thing, but it sounds like restraint would be a lot easier if you know about these treat items and how bad they are for you beforehand. P.S. – I use Aveeno Baby Bath Wash with oatmeal (pump) for handwashing – very gentle and smells wonderful!

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    1. We have Walker’s Shortbread in our pantry as well but Yuka only gives it a 30 (too fatty, salty, caloric). On the other hand your Aveeno bath wash gets a 79 (“Excellent!”) But you make a fair point about the Oreos. Sometimes we need comfort food, and no number good or bad is going to get in the way of that 🙂

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      1. That shortbread is rich, but good and a once-a-year treat. My mom used to make buttery-rich shortbread cookies and shortbread “breakers” – yum. I can see how it could be bad. Great on the Aveeno – I love that product. Yes, the Oreos worked for me that day and I agree you have to bend the rules sometimes. In my younger days, a glass of milk and a strip of regular Oreos was a treat. Milk is full of sodium … I don’t have high BP, but watch my sodium intake.

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  5. Great App. Sounds like they came up with their own rating system versus examining the labels ourselves, yes? Brilliant idea and in America where we live by the words, “Is that healthy.” LOL. A shame, I miss the days where we weren’t so food focused. Went to grandma’s house and ate what she had in the house, etc.

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    1. I was shocked to see the low ratings on products I’ve consumed for years. You’ll find a lot of detail behind the scores too, to assure you a high or low number is well-deserved. And it’s great to have a list of better options right there in front of you, to encourage you to move past what have been “favorites”.

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  7. Hi Dave,
    Thank you for introducing me to this app. It sounds great.
    I am afraid to discover that everything I love and eat is below 5 on that scale.
    Perhaps I should skip the app and live blissfully in ignorance.
    Wishing you a 100/100 2024!!

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  8. Hello Dave, I found your blog through Linda Schaub. I enjoyed reading about this topic.

    But I will admit, I would not want to live without my daily chocolates!

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    1. Welcome, TD! I am a chocolate fan myself, and try to lean towards the more healthy dark varieties. But especially this time of year I have a weakness for milk chocolate. Now it’s 2024 so no excuses… time to get back to better choices.

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      1. This season chocolate treat is the York dark chocolate covered peppermint Pattie. And I selected Almond Joy for the healthy benefits of coconut and almond. I buy the tiny individual wraps. My parents would say “Everything in moderation”. 😁

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  9. How interesting. I’m afraid I would end up obsessed with searching every product I could think of! And here I am munching on cheese while reading this. Good for you for changing to healthier brands.

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  10. How interesting! And scary – I am frightened to think of the average score of the foods I consume. But I may have to try it anyway out of the same morbid curiosity that makes me slow down and look at the aftermath of a traffic accident. “Let’s see which of these loaves of cheap white bread scores better!” 🥺

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    1. It’s entirely convenient (and free if you choose the lesser version), and makes the slog through the grocery store a lot more interesting. I found myself scanning items I had no intention of buying just out of curiosity. Plus, you can deep-dive the number to understand why it was deserved. Game-changer.

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